


Cracked Ice

by januarywren



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Sansa Stark, Canon Rewrite, Casterly Rock, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied Jaime Lannister/Sansa Stark - Freeform, Implied Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Implied Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Implied Petyr Baelish/Sansa Stark, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Incest, Jaime Lannister Has Issues, Jaime Lannister Lives, Jaime Lannister Redemption, Jon Snow Knows Nothing, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Light Angst, Mad Queen Daenerys Targaryen, Other, POV Jaime Lannister, POV Sansa Stark, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Petyr Baelish is His Own Warning, Pining, Post-Season/Series 08 Finale, Queen in the North, Sansa Stark Deserves Better, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, Sansa Stark-centric, The North (ASOIAF), The North Remembers (ASoIaF), Unrequited Love, Winterfell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:54:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27393799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/januarywren/pseuds/januarywren
Summary: “I have a gift for you, Your Grace.”For the North itself, whom Sansa Stark embodied. Jaime often knelt before his northern queen, the same as he had for his sister. Only when Cersei would spread her legs and demand that he showed his adoration, it was different with Sansa.It always was.Tully blue eyes met his and he held himself still. Sansa was the image of her mother, only she possessed warmth that her mother never had. She was pretty and inviting, the same as she could turn cold and demanding when it was needed.The memory of Sansa chastising Lord Glover made Jaime ache with amusement, though his reaction was far different when he was the subject of her ire. She could be as harsh as the winter wind then, eerily reminiscent of his father.Perhaps she was the most fitting Stark, Jaime thought, for she played the game and had her honor still.(Could anyone else say the same?)Canon Divergence AU | The Queen in the North is surrounded by ghosts, and broken men.
Relationships: Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Jaime Lannister & Sansa Stark, Jaime Lannister/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow & Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow & Sansa Stark
Comments: 14
Kudos: 94





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spacelemonunderscore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacelemonunderscore/gifts), [Redbirdblackdog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redbirdblackdog/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure where I'm taking this (yet)...
> 
> but Sansa is staying in the North with Jaime and Jon and the ghosts that surround them. I may turn this into a romance or keep it as a mood piece (thank you so much @redbirdblackdog and @spacelemonunderscore for your support, and for cheering me up! I don't think I would have written anything for weeks - it means the world that you guys believe in me). 🔵
> 
> Either way, thank you for reading. :) I hope that you all are safe and well, and wearing a mask (if you need to go out!). Covid-19 is on the rise again in the United States, and the disease is truly devastating. 
> 
> In April my dad went from working a physically demanding job to catching a fever, cough, and was unable to stand or walk seemingly overnight. Two days later we had to take him to the hospital, where he was immediately transferred to a larger ambulance, and went to the ICU. 
> 
> We never saw him from the time he arrived at the first hospital nor while he was in the ICU, as visitors were banned from visiting any patient possibly carrying covid. 
> 
> I wouldn't wish the experience we went through on anyone - talking to my dad on the phone while he struggled to breathe, and only had a 20% chance of survival is something I will never forget. 
> 
> Please, for the sake of yourself and others, wear a mask (that covers your nose!), wash your hands, and socially distance. We can get through this if we work together, and remember the guidelines. 💜

“I have a gift for you, Your Grace.”

For the North itself, whom Sansa Stark embodied. Jaime often knelt before his northern queen, the same as he had for his sister. Only when Cersei would spread her legs and demand that he showed his adoration, it was different with Sansa.

It always was.

Tully blue eyes met his and he held himself still. Sansa was the image of her mother, only she possessed warmth that her mother never had. She was pretty and inviting, the same as she could turn cold and demanding when it was needed. The memory of Sansa chastising Lord Glover made Jaime ache with amusement, though his reaction was far different when _he_ was the subject of her ire. She could be as harsh as the winter wind then, eerily reminiscent of his father.

Perhaps she was the most fitting Stark, Jaime thought, for she played the game and had her honor still.

( _Could anyone else say the same_?)

The thought made him sober, as he knew his answer.

Sansa’s time in King’s Landing made her Cersei’s greatest miscalculation, while Jaime recognized her as his sole chance at salvation. It was a truth that he kept from Brienne, as well as Tyrion; a truth neither would understand (as Jaime came to dream of fire kissed curls spread across his pillow, and a wolf in his bed). He wasn't a good man – a selfless man. He knew that.

Behind him, courtiers whispered as Sansa stretched her gloved hands out toward him.

“You may present it to me, Ser Jaime.”

Sansa drew many to her, from King’s Landing to Dorne, and all the places in-between, thereby a court that was fascinated with her. She had spurned the Iron Throne for the North, and few were surprised when the winter court and its lands thrived, while the Dragon Queen struggled against numerous rebellions.

“ _She only knows how to conquer_ ,” _Sansa told him once when they drank mead in her chambers,_ “ _not how to rule_.”

The North remained unmoving as King’s Landing descended into chaos, as Daenerys found that she couldn’t rule through threat alone. Her scaled children couldn’t force Dorne to accept her trade agreements, nor could she use them to have an heir slither forth, from between her legs. Even in the North, there were rumors the queen was barren, and her nephew refused to lay with her.

She had little to offer, and little more to rule, as Flea’s Bottom became deserted and her courtiers turned on one another. Varys was one of the first devoured, as he lost the queen’s favor, and became free sport for the others to chase. It was unabated chaos, one that went unchecked by the Mother of Dragons.

_“Petyr would have thought Daenerys a fool. A beautiful fool, but a fool all the same.”_

_“Littlefinger?”_

_Sansa looked to the fire then, as keenly as if she saw the future reflected there. “He taught me things I’ll never forget, no matter if I ever try.”_

The last rebellion was said to have broken Daenerys, as her nephew lead the charge. Her council abandoned her, aside from Tyrion, the loyal fool, while Aegon Targaryen – the former bastard, Jon Snow – fled from the ashes of King’s Landing and returned to the North. To his _true_ home.

To Sansa –

Who, Jaime knew, was far more than a cousin to Snow.

One only had to be in the room with them to feel the undercurrent of desire between them, one that Jaime surmised neither would act upon. Sansa hardly looked at him for gods sake, while Jon trailed behind her as an honorable man would – or as an ashamed man would, one who'd gambled upon the wrong queen, and lost.

That was something Jaime could relate well to, as much as he wished the opposite.

He remembered well enough the days and the nights when he couldn’t imagine a world without his sister in it. She was his golden-haired queen, his teasing and cruel lover who he could never possess, as wholly and entirely as he wished.

No, it wasn't so long ago that Jaime could forget how he wished he could live inside her, with the world at their door and her voice in his ear. He would have done anything for her, been anything for her when he thought that he was enough to make her whole. It was an ill-fated love, the kind a man had only once in his life, while a woman could never have it at all.

‘I understand far more than you’ll ever know,’ Jaime wanted to say, the words bitter on his tongue, when he stood near Jon. He and the former bastard were hardly different from one another, though he faltered at the thought when it came to Sansa. She was a woman above him, a woman who wouldn’t rut in the council chambers and pass off her illegitimate children as royalty. Sansa was the Maiden come-alive, one who wasn’t meant for someone like him.

( _He supposed that made Jon the Warrior, or the Stranger_ _then_ -)

They were far from the selfish fools that he and Cersei were – especially Sansa, who had no equal. For all that Jaime had loved his sister, she was half the queen that Sansa was, as he remembered every rage and drunken fit that Cersei had. Nor had she been able to control their child, their heir, Joffrey, who could have been so much more.

Jaime shifted, feeling his muscles tense.

They often did at the thought of his children, though he felt little regret for Joffrey. He had never been his, not in truth; as he had never been able to hold him, nor stay near him. It was Tommen and Myrcella that he wept for, though he knew enough to keep his sorrow inward. There was little point in showing his sorrow in the North when his tears froze on his cheeks, and the ground beneath him was covered with the blood of southerners.

Nor could he forget how Sansa had suffered under the very family he mourned. She never spoke of her time at King’s Landing, why would she? She said more than empty courtesies as she guided the North, admonishing and charming, demanding and forgiving, as she became the face and the very spirit of the North, in a thousand different ways. Her name was whispered with reverence, and the Godswood became for the Queen, and the Queen alone to pass through.

It was more than any Stark before her had done.

More than Ned and Catelyn, or the Young Wolf who’d passed before his time.

More than her siblings, as Bran lived beyond the Wall, and Arya chased what she had lost, with Gendry by her side. It was Sansa that remained in Winterfell, with her cousin near her throne, and masses of courtiers surrounding her. Sansa lived for the North and the North alone, without living for herself, a lesson that Cersei had never learned.

Tautly, Jaime swallowed, as he pressed a small, velvet bag into his queen’s hand. She was beautifully solemn as she withdrew it, and a lump of gold spilled from it.

“Tyrion sent it,” Jaime said, with his lips curling upward. His brother had lost much of his bravado after the fall of Daenerys, despite achieving his dream of becoming Lord of Casterly Rock. “It’s the last piece of gold from the mines below Casterly Rock, Your Grace,” for the mines that the Lannisters had cherished had run dry, the same as their reign had.

Still, the Lannisters always repaid their debts. 

And Jaime knew that Sansa had the same thought, as her smile came to match his. There was a hardness in her heart that only one who’d suffered from his family could understand, a hardness that would never crack.

_Nor would his._

“Thank you, Jaime,” Sansa murmured, tucking the gold piece inside its bag before she handed it to her steward.

Later, she would have it fashioned into a collar, where a dire wolf carved from diamonds would hang from it. The Targaryen’s and the Lannisters had fallen, while the Starks had survived, just as they always would.

_Always._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.carrd.co/ 🌹
> 
> https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by Grammarly and redbirdblackdog, thank you so much! You're always so nice and sweet, red. :) 🦝🖤


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recently had some time to update my portfolio and switched from Journo to Carrd! I can see why people are moving to Carrd, it was very easy to use and I love the end result. I'd love to know your thoughts about my portfolio: https://januarywren.carrd.co/ 💕🙌💕
> 
> And as always, thank you for supporting my work, everyone! This story is a change from the others that I'm working on, and it took me a few days to write this chapter. 
> 
> I enjoyed it immensely, though I'm undecided about who to pair Sansa with, even though I can say - unlike my other work - this isn't a love story. It's about three hurting people who are trying to find their place in the world - or at the very least, their place in Winterfell. Sansa is left with her ghosts; two of whom, I think would make a better match than Jaime or Jon.

It was easy to forget the world outside her chamber door, as Sansa watched snowflakes flutter and twirl outside her window. She held her gloved hand out with her fingers spread wide as if she could catch the snowflakes and coax them into staying with her, instead of completely melting.

She’d tried as a child, during times she couldn’t fall asleep.

She’d stretch on the tips of her toes until she was able to unlatch the shutter and welcome the winter night. She’d hold her hands out and watch as snowflakes drifted into her palms, before curling her fingers tight. She never ended up catching anything, not even a cold. Instead, the snowflakes would dissolve, leaving water behind. It would drip from her fingers to the floor, where Lady, faithful, and sweet, would quickly lap the water up.

Sansa turned her head aside, with the tang of bitterness filling her mouth. It was a taste she knew well, as she acknowledged that no one was in the room with her, nor the outer hall. She allowed few to stay in the hall that her family had once established their rooms, as she often awoke screaming from nightmares.

Her pain was her own to bear.

She exhaled shortly, before moving to shut the window. For months she'd slept with the windows thrown wide, regardless of whether there was a fire roaring in her rooms, as she lay beneath her furs. She couldn't explain why she stayed in her childhood rooms, there was nothing that she would explain if anyone asked.

Including her half-brother – no, her _cousin_ , Jon.

Or the Kingslayer.

Jaime.

Sansa swallowed then, as heaviness settled inside her chest. She never thought a Lannister would roam the halls of Winterfell, nor a Targaryen if she were honest (and she always was, if only with herself).

Her mother would have died of shame, had she known that Jaime had once comforted her after he heard her screams; his eyes filled with the same pain. She had little need to ask him what he dreamed of, as they knew the flickering flames and cruel laughter that haunted them. Their ghosts would never leave them, as faithful as any besotted lover. 

“ _Leave me_ ,” she’d said, and he had, only hesitating at the doorway for a moment. “ _Please, Jaime_.”

He had no right to enter her chambers uninvited, and neither did Jon. The only one that saw her in the mornings was her maid, a polite, mousy-haired girl that lost her family during winter. She never said a word about Sansa's scars, nor did her hands shake when she tied her stays. In many ways, Sansa's maid reminded her of her childhood friend, Jeyne.

There were many times when Sansa would have done anything to have Lady or Jeyne beside her. Her position ensured that she was never alone, yet few remembered the girl that she had been. There was little of her left, as Sansa dreamed of bloodshed and war, and the faces of starving men with the cries of dragons overhead.

Her nights and her days were nothing like she had expected, though it was a change that she welcomed all the same. There were rooms of Winterfell that Sansa couldn’t bring herself to visit, as she avoided the kennels, and the room her parents had once claimed as their chambers.

Countless, little things brought her back to when she was nothing but a little bird in the Lannister's court – screaming, and on her knees as her father's head fell, or biting her tongue until it bled, as her family was derided and scorned – Sansa folded in on herself then, as empty courtesies rose to her lips, and she sang the song that the Hound had asked for. It was the song of her childhood, a pretty song that she would never cherish again.

Other times she was Alayne, a bastard that no one but her father wanted, and a girl that knew what every man craved. She could call a man to her with the sway of her hips and a playful look over her shoulder, one that would send her tumbling into a man’s bed –

And it was that thought that made Sansa still as if she were a statue of the Maiden, lifeless and carved from stone. Screams filled her ears, screams that sounded like her own, and she wasn't a little bird or a bastard, but a woman tortured in her home. Winterfell was painted with the memories of her childhood, the same as it was doused in the blood of her womanhood.

Her mother had never told her how cruel men could be, nor had her Septa. How would they when they knew nothing of beasts? Sansa remembered her mother’s heartbreak when her father appeared with Jon, and she wanted to laugh until her ribs ached. She would have taken her mother's pain as her own a thousand times over if it meant avoiding what Ramsay inflicted upon her.

Ramsay was more cunning than Joffrey could ever be and managed to charm where Petyr faltered and leered. For all that she ached to return to Winterfell, Sansa doubted she would have made the same choice, had she known the beast that stalked its halls. Ramsay was less of a man than he was a beast, one that snapped and snarled, and was never full.

_Never_.

Sansa knew that Ramsay had wanted all of her and had engraved himself inside her. It wasn't the crude initials carved inside her thigh that she feared, but the sound of his laughter in her ear, and the feel of his fingers as they traced her rib cage. No part of her was sacred, nor was there a part of her that she'd been able to hide away. He'd stripped her soul bare and taken everything he could while pouring himself into her.

Harshly, Sansa exhaled.

She refused to take milk of the poppy to sleep, regardless of how Sam, now Winterfell’s official Maester, pestered her. It was pointless to admit that it did nothing for her, as she'd doused herself with poppy, every night that she was married. There was another medicine she'd known well too, one with a cloying, sour taste that made her stomach turn, and her dreams of having children falter.

No, there were things she would never say to Sam, nor to anyone. There were things that were private, the same as there were scars that would never fade, and nightmares that would remain. Sansa looked forward, not back, for she knew that she would never stop living in the past if she could. It was a luxury that she couldn't afford, unlike Jon who sulked for days and placed his feelings before duty. She knew that she was more than that, the way that she knew she was more than _him_.

( _It was an ugly thought, a truthful thought, that made her hands tremble…_ )

She often eschewed sleep entirely, instead finding safety in her study and her ceaseless work instead. There, she would meet with her council, and review countless documents, while sending a raven or two if needed, before she held court.

She allowed the common folk to approach her, the same as she welcomed foreign dignitaries and noblemen alike. She was far from Cersei who lived in her high tower, drowning herself in wine, and further still from Daenerys, who listened to none that disagreed with her. Neither knew how to rule, for they had to have the appeal of a woman, as well as twice the spirit and the cunning of any man.

It was a lesson that Petyr knew well, one that he'd taught his many whores to have. They were of little use to him if they only knew how to lay with a man. They had to know more than a whore's usual tricks, they had to know how to act as sweet as any lover while coaxing secrets from their client's lips, and hiding their true selves away.

They could never blur the lines between business and pleasure if they wished to maintain the upper hand. They could have freedom if they wished, the wisest ones finding it in a thousand different ways, while the foolish would take what they could while seeing the world in black and white. It was a lesson that Petyr impressed on her countless times, culminating with the offer of marriage; whether to himself or to the Bolton bastard.

Sansa could either have Petyr and hide away in the Vale, or marry Ramsay, and play an entirely different game. She had gambled, it was true, and she had lost; though it mattered little, for she'd learned from it. It was Petyr and Ramsay who saw their blood splatter across the snow covered ground, while she remained a Stark in Winterfell still.

And if she wished then, for there to be a child in her lap, and a husband at her side, the thought passed soon enough.

It had to.

"Gods," Sansa murmured, her gaze drawn still, to the snowy world outside. She could hardly stand it when a man came near, though she held herself still, and kept her expression serene. Her leather gloves hid her trembling fingers, while the long sleeves and hem of her dresses covered the scars that littered her skin.

Nor was she ever without a long hairpin that she sequestered in her sleeve; the end of it sharpened enough to pierce through skin. She wouldn’t let herself be taken from her home again, nor would she lose the small sense of safety she felt.

And it helped, it did -

She welcomed Jaime to her study, or her room on occasion when they drank before the crackling fire, and she allowed herself to enjoy his dry sense of humor. Somehow, he always drew a smile to her lips, and laughter too, even on the worst of nights.

And there was Jon too.

Sansa swallowed tautly at the thought of her cousin.

He’d made his choice clear when he knelt to the dragon queen and returned with her at his side. Sansa had learned from the very, very best at how to play the game, and Jon had known so _little_. He hadn’t listened to her, he had barely spoken to her, and the intimacy they’d shared before he left had crumbled.

And then – then –

He’d followed his queen south and hadn’t looked back.

Sansa didn't allow herself to remember the nights she'd spent crying into her pillow while stuffing her fingers inside her mouth to silence her pained moans. Jon had made his choice, and it hadn’t been her.

( _Who ever chose her?_ )

It was only when Jon found himself disillusioned and afraid that he’d taken against a stand against Daenerys and led the charge against her. Sansa had watched from the North and listened to every scrap of news that the wind carried. Yet she hadn’t written Jon. Not once.

Nor had she invited him into her chambers when he returned, with a bedraggled army behind him, and sorrow in his gaze. It seemed he’d learned every truth about Daenerys, only it’d come too late.

“ _Welcome home, Jon_ ," Sansa said, the embodiment of winter herself. The only man that she trusted after Ramsay had betrayed her, no less than Petyr had. It was a slight that she wouldn't let herself forget, a betrayal that she would never forgive. 

Jon had crumpled then, as she knew that he would.

( _Was it Cersei that taught her how to hurt others, as precisely as they hurt her? Or was it Joffrey, or Tyrion, Robb, or Petyr, or Ramsay, or countless others that Sansa couldn’t stand to name_ -)

Still, Jon had decided to stay, as Jaime had.

“ _What do you want that you do not have?”_

Sansa bit her lip, as the mocking words filled her ears. Petyr was a ghost that would never leave her, his voice louder than most. He always had fancied himself as her teacher, and she remembered well enough, not to give all of her thought’s life. It was better to never utter them aloud, as they remained entirely her own; something another could never claim to have. She belonged to herself, from her thoughts and her feelings to the initials, she embroidered on the inside of her sleeves.

She was Sansa Stark; the wife, the lover, and the mother of none. Her duty was to the North, but her body belonged to her once more, the same as her heart. She would never give them away, the same as she kept her thoughts and her feelings to herself as remote as the howling wind. 

Sansa opened her eyes, watching the outer world again. It was the only thing that made sense, the only thing that seemed right in the world. Winterfell was her home, with all of its ghosts, and its ever-falling world of snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.carrd.co/ 🌹
> 
> https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by Grammarly! 🦝🖤


End file.
